Estimates only, not a loan offer. Payment = standard amortization; your actual rate depends on credit, time in business and the equipment.
Enter the loan amount, APR and term — the calculator builds the full amortization schedule, visible on the page rather than tucked behind a click, then lets you model extra monthly principal and a one-time extra payment against the baseline: payoff month, months saved, interest saved, and both runs’ total interest side by side. Most business calculators give you the schedule or the acceleration math, rarely both with the baseline kept in view — and none of them warns you, at the moment you model extra payments, that on some loans those payments carry a penalty. This one does (see the caution box below).
General information, not financial advice, and estimates only. The schedule assumes a fixed rate and on-time payments; your lender’s statement remains the record that counts.
A $100,000 loan · 8% APR · 60 months:
Now add $200 a month of extra principal — no other change:
That is the whole economics of extra principal in one example: the $200 never touches a payment’s interest portion, it deletes balance — and every month after, interest is charged on a smaller balance, so more of each scheduled payment becomes principal, which deletes more balance. The effect compounds quietly; by the end it has erased half a year of payments for $200 a month.
Each row is one month: the payment, its interest slice (that month’s opening balance × APR ÷ 12), its principal slice (payment minus interest), and the closing balance. Watch two things in the worked example’s table: how slowly the balance moves in year one — the first payment is $666.67 interest against $1,360.97 principal — and how the split inverts by the final year. The full lesson in reading a schedule, including finding the month where principal overtakes interest, is #153’s job: amortization schedules, explained walks a schedule row by row. This page generates; that page teaches.
Before you model extra payments, check the penalty. On an SBA 7(a) loan with a maturity of 15 years or more, prepaying 25% or more of the balance in any of the first three years triggers a penalty of 5%, then 3%, then 1% of the amount prepaid. The prepayment penalties guide has the full rules — read it before treating the interest saved above as free money.
A schedule answers “what does repayment look like”; the neighbouring questions are different pages. A loan whose payments are calculated on a long schedule but due in full early is a balloon structure — balloon payment business loans owns that shape, and this calculator deliberately has no balloon mode. Swapping the whole loan for a cheaper one is a refinance break-even question, not an extra-principal question. And if all you need is the payment number with no schedule, the business loan calculator gives it faster — its schedule stays collapsed on purpose; this page is the one that leads with the table.
How much interest can I save by paying extra principal? On the worked example, $200 a month on a $100,000 loan at 8% over 60 months saves $2,427.44 and clears the loan 6 months early. Your figure scales with rate, balance and how early the extra payments start — enter your loan and an extra amount above and the comparison panel gives your exact number.
What does an amortization schedule show? Every payment across the loan’s life, broken into its interest and principal parts, with the remaining balance after each. It is the only document that shows why early payments barely dent the balance and late payments mostly retire it: interest is always charged on the current balance, so the split shifts as the balance falls.
How do extra payments change my payoff date? Extra principal reduces the balance faster than the original schedule assumes, so the final payment arrives early — by 6 months in the worked example, where the loan ends at month 54 with a smaller final payment instead of month 60. The payoff month and months saved are shown next to the baseline so the change is never a guess.
Estimates only, not financial advice. Sources: standard amortization mathematics; thelawdept’s extra-principal modelling framing; GetHoldings’ published cross-check for the baseline example ($2,028 payment, ≈$21,660 interest); SBA prepayment-penalty rule for 7(a) loans with maturities of 15+ years, as detailed in the linked penalties guide. Currency verified 2026-10-23.